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Consultant discusses findings on Poland Municipal Forest concerns
POLAND
The Stow-based environmental consulting firm EnviroScience Inc. presented initial erosion findings from a survey of Poland Municipal Forest to Poland stakeholders Friday.
The findings indicate erosion could be reversed, but to do so could involve short-term impacts to the forest.
The meeting at Wittenauer’s Cafe included three members of the Poland Municipal Forest Board and representatives from the Poland Forest Foundation.
The impetus for the survey was concern about erosion along Drake’s Run and Yellow Creek, said forest board member Mark Thompson.
Julie Bingham, a senior scientist with EnviroScience, explained that channels in the forest have eroded in a way that cut off the water from its original floodplain.
“From a stream restoration perspective, we have the ability to reverse the channel evolutionary process. We can take efforts to reattach this stream to the original floodplain,” said Bingham.
Bingham identified five specific areas in the forest that would benefit from targeted intervention.
Specifically, the solutions include imported rock, artificial log jams and planting of vegetation to create riffles, which are the shallow, rocky parts of a stream.
Intervention would make the area more resilient to change and reduce erosion, explained Bingham.
“The one hesitation I have with basically all the concepts I’m going to put forward is, your woods are so nice. To go back through here and do this, you have to make an access path for construction equipment, which involves cutting trees and things like that,” said Bingham.
“You have to ask yourselves, ‘Is that the thing that we want to do?’ Otherwise, we subject ourselves to the channel evolution process.” said Bingham.
Despite these concerns, the firm aims to make all intervention look as natural as possible.
“Our goal is in five or 10 years, somebody walking on the trail doesn’t think anything ever happened here. That is the ultimate success,” said EnviroScience conservation specialist Neal Hess.
Hess also identified potential sources of funding for the project.
The most viable options, he said, are the Water Resource Restoration Sponsorship Program from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Ohio Fund.
The firm does not yet have a cost estimate for the proposal.
The survey results likely will be discussed at the forest board’s next meeting at 7:30 p.m. March 26 at village hall.